TV Goes Out (Jul, 1966)

You’d think that if their owners were really so swinging they could think of something better to do at the beach than watch TV…

TV Goes Out

A GROWING demand for TV sets that, like their swinging owners, go-go anywhere has led Exide to produce the Personal Power Pack. The unit contains a lead/acid storage battery and a charger. The output is 12 volts DC. The new carry-around TV sets being offered by Philco, Sony, Panasonic and others operate on either 117 volts AC or 12 volts DC. A home-type portable that operates on AC only also can be powered by Exide pack if an inverter (costing about $60) is put between pack and set to change the DC to 117 volts AC. Exide now is working on a pack that will include an inverter. One charge runs a small TV set about eight hours; battery life is put at 1,000 hours. The price is $39.95.

To be fair, TV was still a pretty novel, cool thing back then (and something that people did as a group activity), and these early adopters were probably the talk of the boardwalk rather than junkies who just couldn’t get away from the boob tube.

Blurgle says: June 18, 200712:09 pm

The guy looks about five months pregnant!

NikFromNYC says: January 13, 20081:09 am

Don’t laugh. The mating rituals of human females require that the man max out his credit card or inheritance, to provide better experiences for girly girls than the stud bad boy with the motorbike. I did this with first a B/W pocket Sony TV portable (with an actual miniature Cathode Ray Tube that pointed at a mirror), then a flat LCD screen, to watch the latest episodes of Star Trek Enterprise in the quite at night Havemeyer 309 room of the Chemistry Dept. of Columbia U, where they filmed a crucial scene from the movie Malcolm X etc.. Guess what? 20 years later, I still have the hottest chick in the world. You know what I mean. The type you don’t lose attraction for. Her latest demand? Sort through all of Bob Marley’s 309 songs, for her iPod nano. 21 to go. I had more respect for Mr. Dreadlock before I heard the bad recordings of hundreds of bad Marxist (work at Circuit City instead of go to College hippie sh*t theme) junk. But also, Bit Torrent and Netflix are merely the latest. This is an example of simple mating behavior. Old days? Reading the Bible or Marche de Sade outloud to the glow of a fireplace, or fire-burning stove light/room-heater. Why do you think they called the “boob” tube, early on. It was bling, the likes of which, especially in miniature form will likely never exist again. “Hey hoochie mammie, my iPod is thinner than Brent’s and Buck’s combined, if you understand math.” And what were they watching? Real news, back when Journalism wasn’t a Leftist political club, and real movies back when they really made real movies for TV. Then they f*cked. Why? Because video porn was unheard of, and Madonna and Britney had not yet made sex so boring that it was a mere form of foreplay for actual dating. The latest/greatest? Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Great Dictator’ and a couple of his early works. The COMPLETE pilot and latest seasons of the new BattleStar Gallactica, the ENTIRE 4th Doctor Who Episodes, Connections by James Burke (Season 1, and the decade later seasons 2&3), along with all the good Fellini movies such as ‘Amacord’ (“I Remember”), along with ‘Streetcar Named Desire’. I could go on, but I can’t give away all my continuing tricks of beach seduction technology.